By : Fawaz Shabir )*
Ahead of the upcoming 2024 general elections, the public has been warned that there will be no excessive demonstrations that will cause conflict. Recently there has been talk of the emergence of a demonstration movement entitled People Power which was predicted to be the spark of Rocky Gerung, of course this was rejected by many people, including Community Organizations (Ormas) to the police who strictly prohibited the existence of this movement, especially since it actually smelled of treason.
Not only was he accused of insulting the Head of State, but the political observer again created a stir, namely because he had also made a controversial statement related to the existence of a labor movement that was incorporated into the Million Workers Action Alliance.
Of course, with this issue, it immediately received a lot of attention from various parties, bearing in mind that because there was an attempt to provoke workers and it is possible that future actions have the potential to repeat the dark history of the 1998 tragedy.
Responding to the philosopher’s statement, the Corong Rakyat activist, Hasan, said that the provocation of people power which has been echoed by opposition figures has the potential to trigger uproar ahead of the holding of the General Elections (Pemilu) in 2024.
It was not half-hearted, even from this action it was also strongly suspected that there were a number of groups that deliberately rode on the movement of the workers who had a large mass. Therefore, it will be very vulnerable if this issue is left alone. So that the security forces should not be caught off guard by this movement and be able to immediately suppress it so that it does not get bigger and cause chaos.
The same thing was also expressed by the Directorate of Java and Bali, Deputy Midwife of Internal Intelligence at the State Intelligence Agency (BIN), Brigadier General of Police (Brigjen Pol) Slamet Urip Widodo who explained how important it was for the security forces to be able to immediately suppress this movement.
Meanwhile, the Leader of Indonesian Tolerance, Haidar Alwi, considers that the invitation to mobilize a number of people in the people power movement is an invitation to treason. It is clear that it is very important for the security forces to be able to enforce the law and arrest the provocateurs who initiated the treason issue.
As is known, the action entitled People Power initiated by Rocky Gerung on August 10 is indeed a lot of people who reject it. One of them was rejected by the Jago Abang Community, Lamongan Regency, which firmly rejected the action. Suhartono, the Coordinator of the Jago Abang Community in Lamongan, thinks that this action could make things worse and trigger the disintegration of the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia (NKRI).
Nevertheless, the youth leader from Lamongan also hopes that the public will not be easily provoked by irresponsible elements, so that the integrity of the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia (NKRI) is maintained and united. The unity and unity of Indonesia is indeed very valuable, so no one should try to undermine it.
Apart from Suhartono, the chairman of PC GP Ansor Lamongan, Muhammad Mukhlisin, also expressed his rejection of the idea of Rocky Gerung. With the same ideology as before, according to Mukhlisin, this movement could provoke the public and exaggerate, so that it could undermine the dignity of the Indonesian nation. For this reason, they firmly reject the existence of this action, especially with what Rocky said regarding his sentence which was considered insulting to President Joko Widodo.
Responding to Rocky’s sentence, Mukhlisin considered that the statement looked very emotional, so it gave the impression of condescending and even insulting President Jokowi. He also said that criticizing and insulting were very different, moreover Jokowi had indeed contributed a lot to Indonesia, so the sentence that said President Jokowi was an idiot who was an idiot was very inappropriate to say.
Bearing in mind that People Power, which makes people rowdy, is still being widely discussed, actually this action is not able to unite the workers, the community, and the people. How could you not, join in 1 joint action that has different visions and missions? Of course it is not easy to unite all aspirations into one, this is very difficult to do, because indeed the vision and mission have different goals. For example, as laborers, they will express aspirations related to their welfare, salary, and everything related to them, are they the same as the aspirations of ordinary people or students? Certainly not.
Likewise students, they convey their aspirations with the ideology they have, of course at times like this they are afraid of being ridden by other elements who might be able to take advantage of them. So, in this case, the struggle as a human being is not just a matter of actions or people power, but rather it is better to maintain each other’s identity so as not to weaken the unity and integrity of the nation.
Thus, if we reflect back, the People Power movement is indeed less profitable and difficult to achieve the desired results. There are so many aspirations that will be conveyed, so the focus is not on the problem, but on who most wants to be heard, even though all of them also want to be heard. Because of that, each of them has their own agenda, for that instead of wasting energy, it’s better to focus on self-change that is useful for the surrounding community.
)* The author is a contributor to the Nusa Bangsa Institute
